MANILA, Philippines — Legal practitioners on Tuesday demanded that the Supreme Court act on the rise in killings of lawyers in recent years, citing the adverse impacts of the attacks against the legal profession and on the independence of lawyers.
"The continuing, increasing and more brazen killings on Filipino lawyers and judges have been going for many years now but we noticed a sharp increase since President Rodrigo Duterte came to office in 2016 and has made the legal profession one of the most dangerous careers in the country," over 70 signatories said in a letter addressed to Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta.
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"When lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and workers in the justice sector are murdered with impunity and alarming regularity, no one feels safe, our people lose trust and faith in our government and its justice system, and the unscrupulous are emboldened to take the law in their criminal hands," the Integrated Bar of the Philippines also wrote in a separate letter sent to Vice President Leni Robredo and to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
In their letter to the high court, the lawyers called for "a thorough, prompt, impartial, and independent investigation into all the killings of lawyers," a dialogue between the SC and state security forces, and accountability for the victims of extrajudicial killings and of violence against lawyers and judges.
The past two months have seen a string of killings of lawyers Joey Luis Wee and Baby Maria Concepcion Landero-Olealso in Cebu and of Eric Jay Magcamit in Palawan. Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Maria Teresa Abadilla was reportedly shot dead by her clerk of court who then killed himself.
On Monday evening, the National Bureau of Investigation announced that a body found in Tarlac in October was that of retired Court of Appeals Justice Normandie Pizarro who had been reported missing that month.
Government mandated to protect lawyers
An earlier report by the human rights office of the United Nations noted in July this year that many in the legal field in the country have been killed, with others have faced threats and most of the cases have remained unresolved. That same month, the chief inquest prosecutor of Manila City was shot dead by unidentified men in broad daylight.
They all join the list of now more than 50 individuals in the legal profession who were murdered in recent years.
"We would like to reiterate that under the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, governments are mandated to ensure that lawyers are able to perform their profession without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference," the letter, whose signatories include Bayan Muna chairperson Neri Colmenares, lawyer Tony La Viña, former dean of the Ateneo School of Government, and former Supreme Court spokesperson Ted Te, also reads.
IBP national president Domingo Cayosa also said in a separate statement that "the unabated killing of lawyers, too often with impunity, is a sad reflection of the spiraling violence and disregard of, if not contempt for the rule of law in our land."
"As we recognize our responsibilities and limitations, we seek concerted action on the part of our leaders in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, many of whom are fellow lawyers," he also said.
Cayosa also pointed to the killing in daylight of a mother and son in Paniqui, Tarlac at the hands of an off-duty police officer, which drew mass outrage in social media on Monday. — Franco Luna